


Chainmaille and Road Trips

by officialbookwizard



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: F/F, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Theyna - Freeform, WIP, and there was only one bed, do i look like i know what im doing, i dont btw, i have many regrets and this is none of them, i read soulmate aus while making chainmaille and this was the result, the chaotic entity that is thalia grace
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 20:14:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,222
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27002593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/officialbookwizard/pseuds/officialbookwizard
Summary: Reyna Ramirez-Arellano finds herself on a cross-country road trip with her friends, her soulmarks, and a couple of vague clues leading her to the girl she's been waiting her whole life to meet.She's almost positive by this point that she knows who her soulmate is, but will never be sure. That is, until she can finally be brave enough to tell Thalia Grace.
Relationships: Thalia Grace/Reyna Avila Ramírez-Arellano
Comments: 4
Kudos: 49





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> I made several poor decisions and this was the result. And I am aware that the story is a mess. I wrote nearly all of it past midnight, and now I'm halfway through this and too stubborn to quit.

Reyna didn’t have a soulmate.

That was, until Halloween the year she was fifteen, when Jason walked into the Principia with the word “LOSER” written in sharpie across his face.

Reyna looked up at him and burst into laughter. Jason, however, couldn’t see the funny side to the situation.

“I’m sorry, Jase-” she said, hysterical. “What happened to you?”

“My soulmate and I got into an argument last week about whether or not hotdogs and tacos were sandwiches. She’s wearing a mask all day for Halloween and decided that my views deserved this,” he said. “Granted, I  _ did  _ draw a giant bushy mustache when I wore a helmet for the war games a few days ago, but still!”

Sometime between the ages of ten and thirteen, everyone started receiving on their skin whatever marks appeared on their soulmate’s. They could be cuts, bruises, scrapes, or, more importantly, writing. 

Almost everybody takes a marker to their skin at some point in their lives, hoping for a response from their soulmate. Some soulmates communicate daily, others almost never. 

Reyna laughed, if anything, harder. “I shouldn’t be laughing,” she wheezed. “But the story behind that-  _ please  _ tell me you weren’t the one who thought a TACO was a sandwich!”

Jason went red. “Well, it has a bread-ish exterior and a sandwichy interior. It makes  _ sense _ !”

“Well, if a taco shell counts as sandwich bread, you could smear peanut butter and jelly on the inside of one and eat it, but you don’t want to do that.” Reyna had a fondness for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, which Jason was always using against her in arguments. Now she was going to use it against him.

“That isn’t the point! I have the word ‘LOSER’ all over my face and she won’t take it off! You’d understand if you-”

Jason fell silent, but Reyna knew exactly what he was going to say.  _ If you had a soulmate. _

When Reyna was younger, she would doodle little hearts and greetings all over her arms and legs. For years she did this, but her soulmate never said anything.

She gave up on a response eventually, but would still write and draw on her skin, for no other purpose than to seem like she had a soulmate. After Charleston, there were enough rumors about her love life; she didn’t need another one.

The only person she ever told about her situation was Jason, and he was little comfort. He was her best friend and understood her better than anyone else in the world, but it was hard to take advice about not having a soulmate from someone who woke up every morning to bad jokes and smiley faces from his. But he meant well, and she wouldn’t trade him for the world.

She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. Just the way it is. But that reminds me, I need to refresh some of these marks.”

Reyna took a gold paint marker out of a drawer in the desk and scanned down her arm for a place to draw. However, she stopped and touched her wrist, frowning. 

“Hey Jase,” she said. “Look at this.”

There was a strange mark on her wrist, a dark band of greenish discoloration going all the way around. It was hard to make out on Reyna’s skin, but it was definitely there.

Jason looked at her wrist, confused. “I don’t get it. What are we looking at?”

Reyna traced around her wrist with her finger. “This. It wasn’t here last night and I don’t know where it came from.”   


“I thought you drew that on,” Jason said. “You don’t remember  _ anything  _ about getting it?”

“Not at all. I would say it’s a soulmark, but I don’t have a soulmate.”

“I don’t know,” Jason said uncertainly. “It looks pretty soulmatey to me.”

“If I’d had one before now, I would have known.”

“Well, I don’t know. I’ve heard of a few cases- rare, but not unheard of- where someone’s soulmate is in a coma, or has issues communicating with you, or even isn’t assigned until later in life. Try writing something.” 

Reyna didn’t want to give herself false hope, but she had always wondered what it would be like to have a soulmate. Someone you could share everything about your life with, stay up all night drawing stupid pictures with. Someone you could fall in love with before you even knew each other. Her insides battled for a second, but eventually the part of her who wanted to write something won out.

She drew an arrow to the band with her marker, along with the word “ _ soulmate? _ ”

Almost immediately, she felt a scratching on her skin. With it came words etched in ink.

_ “Sorry I’m late. Traffic was murder.”  _ It took Reyna a minute to decipher what it said. The handwriting was awful and Reyna was dyslexic, which didn’t really lead to easy reading. However, when she  _ did  _ manage to read it, her jaw dropped. It was her soulmate. 

Reyna screamed. She didn’t mean to, but it came out anyway.

Jason put a hand over his mouth. “Your soulmate! Reyna, she finally replied!”

Reyna allowed herself to scream one more time, something she wouldn’t have done around the people who expected her to be regal and composed. However, since Jason had once seen her choke on jellybeans after telling him that  _ of course _ she could chug the entire jar, she didn’t particularly care.

Throughout the day, Reyna had a conversation with her soulmate.

_ “What took you so long?”  _ Reyna wrote on her arm.

_ “I died. Don’t worry, I came back.” _

Reyna was, to say the least, dumbfounded. You didn’t come back from the dead. It was impossible.

_ “How?” _

_ “I got turned into a tree, then my friends let me out of said tree. It’s been five years.” _

_ “Where do you live now? I’d like to meet you.” _

_ “Kinda complicated. Besides, it probably wouldn’t let me tell you things like my name or where I live. We’ll have to get creative.” _

Reyna had never heard anything about being unable to even say your name before. She had planned on making a ship name. Then again, maybe it was for the best. Jason would have tracked his down by now and they’d be wreaking havoc together. 

She shuddered at the thought. 

_ “We’ll figure something out. What’s with the green wrist?” _

_ “Cheap metal. I made a chainmaille bracelet and wore it too long,”  _ wrote Reyna’s soulmate.

_ “Is it permanent?”  _ she asked. She wouldn’t necessarily mind the mark being permanent, but she wanted to know.

_ “It’s not. I’d be in major trouble if it was. I always wore these things before the tree.” _

_ “How often?" _

_ “I don’t know. A lot.” _

_ “Is that what I should look for to find you?”  _ Reyna asked. It was small, but a small lead was better than none.

_ “Do you really want that many marks on your wrists?”  _ Her soulmate wrote.  _ “I can start wearing them every day." _

_ “If it means having an easier time finding you, then yes.” _

_ “I should probably invest in some better quality rings, then.” _

_ “Please.” _

From then on, Reyna started watching the wrists of everyone she passed. She saw plenty of watches, bangles, drawings, and messages. However, none of them were her soulmate. 

It took her a little while to learn what she was looking for. (She only was able to recognize handmade chainmaille after her soulmate had told her to “ _ look up the dam thing. You could have missed me a dozen times by now!”)  _ She clearly couldn’t spell the word ‘damn’, but the sentiment was there.

A few times, Reyna sincerely thought she had found her. However, she was never right. And it wasn’t like she could ask her soulmate- you couldn’t write a name and expect it to show up. Names never did, even if they weren’t your own. It was annoying that her soulmate was incapable of directly saying anything that would have helped Reyna find her. She had been waiting her whole life for this. 

Reyna hated waiting.

A year and a half passed by, bringing her through some of the most trying times of her life. Throughout all of it, she talked with her soulmate constantly. They rarely communicated during the day, but Reyna stayed up all night talking with her, a fine tipped sharpie as her voice, drawing conversations across a canvas of skin. The conversations were too personal to keep on her arms, but lines of writing crisscrossed Reyna’s torso and upper thighs, covering almost her entire body with ink. 

She struggled every night to squeeze more and more in, unable to go a day without talking to her soulmate. This girl was so sassy and sarcastic, so witty, so optimistic, so... alive. Reyna was thrilled to have her as a soulmate. 

She couldn’t imagine falling in love with anyone else, not the way she’d already fallen for the girl marking her skin every night, marking it with words meant for Reyna and only Reyna. Even though almost everyone in the world experienced this, it felt like being part of a thrilling secret. 

This was a secret Reyna could stand.


	2. Chapter Two

Greeks. Why did everything interesting happen when Reyna was with the Greeks? She was a Roman praetor, yet her most memorable experiences were with the Greeks. The irony wasn’t something she appreciated.

After a four day road trip with Frank, Hazel, Dakota, and (Bellona help her) Lavinia, going from New Rome to Camp Half- Blood for a diplomatic mission, Reyna was exhausted and 110% done with people. So, the last thing she wanted was to show up to find the Hunters of Artemis already there, ready to put the “fun” in funeral. Reyna’s funeral. 

Reyna had barely arrived at Camp when the Hunters greeted her. By “greeted,” she meant something more along the lines of “shot at.” 

She was ten steps past the border- less, even, when an arrow went flying past her head, missing her by inches.. 

“Hey!” she called. “Don’t shoot us!”

Several huntresses turned around, faces a combination of shock and laughter. Thalia Grace jogged over to them.

Reyna had met Thalia once before, though admittedly it wasn’t the most ideal meeting. They had been exchanging letters since then, but hadn’t spoken much other than that.

“Sorry about that, praetor,” Thalia said cheerily. “Everyone else is on the other side of camp, so we were doing shooting drills.”

Reyna didn’t know how to respond as Thalia ran back to her fellow hunters, leaving her open-mouthed and rooted to the spot. 

She quickly regained her composure and turned to her friends. “Alright, let’s get away from here before we all get impaled. We should go to the Big House and tell Chiron we’ve arrived.”

Nods came from the group in general as Reyna led them out of the Hunters’ territory and towards a (marginally) safer area of camp. As was usual during the summers, there were people everywhere- on the climbing wall, in the lake, dashing between cabins. 

They went through the minefield of people and their dangerous activities, making it to the Big House intact. At the door, they were met by Chiron, who was sitting in his wheelchair. 

“Welcome back,” he said, a smile on his face. “Any diplomatic meetings scheduled for today have been, ah, postponed.”

He gestured over towards the cabins. The Hera cabin was on fire, campers and satyrs alike swarming it to put it out. 

“As you can see, there was an... incident, shall we say, involving several Athena campers, the shrine to Hera, Leo Valdez, and a spider. This poses a problem because the Hera cabin was where you were all going to stay for the night. We had just finished a new addition to the back that made the cabin livable for guests.”

Reyna groaned internally. The Hera cabin was the only empty cabin. Surely Chiron wouldn’t make them leave so soon, but Reyna had learned to never get her hopes up. 

She really didn’t want to go back so soon. She had driven everyone almost four whole days to get here, and she certainly didn’t want to do it again so soon. And it wasn’t like there were any other options. They couldn’t all go by the legion’s eagles, given there were almost none left, and nobody at camp could safely shadow travel them. Besides, they weren’t leaving Reyna’s truck behind. She loved that truck.

But Chiron wasn’t done talking yet. “I’ve decided to house each of you with your siblings on the Greek side. Hazel, you will be in the Hades cabin. Nico will share it with you. Dakota, you’re in Dionysus. Lavinia, you’re in Apollo-”

“But you’re not-” Frank started.

“They adopted me,” Lavinia said casually.

“Continuing,” Chiron interrupted. “Frank, you’ve stayed in the Ares cabin before, have you?”

“I have,” said Frank.

“Good. You’ll be staying there. However, I believe you, Reyna, have not.”

“I haven’t.”

“There’s the slight matter of the death traps, and I don’t think it’s safe for anyone who isn’t a descendent of Ares to even step foot in there. Athena is closest to Bellona, but the fact remains that it is full. Either way, you would probably end up on spider patrol, which is a fate I do not wish on anyone.”

Reyna wasn’t going to question Chiron’s judgement. “I can stay anywhere. It doesn’t particularly matter to me.” 

“Thank you for your flexibility. I’ve decided, unless you have an objection, to put you in the Zeus cabin. It will be the quietest, as the only person there should be Thalia, lieutenant of Artemis.” Reyna noticed how he carefully avoided saying her last name. She couldn’t blame Thalia for not using it.

“That’s fine, sir.”

“Excellent. Tomorrow we should have the Hera cabin rebuilt. Until then, however, most of the meeting’s attendees are working to first put out the fire, then help with rebuilding.”

Reyna, who was used to buildings going up overnight, didn’t question it. She’d seen the Greeks do plenty of things they shouldn’t have been capable of. 

“In the meantime, do you want us to help with rebuilding? We’re Romans; we’re trained to build quickly and effectively.”

“That would be wonderful, but you are by no means obliged to do so. You are, after all, guests.”

“It’s fine,” Frank interjected. “We don’t mind. We’re here on business anyway.” 

For the next few hours, against everything Reyna’s fatigued body was telling her, she worked on the Hera cabin, commanding groups of people in their tasks. The Hunters of Artemis eventually came to help. It was past eleven when she stopped, leaving the cabin almost completely finished. 

Reyna could barely think by the time she stumbled into the Zeus cabin at midnight after wandering around the camp in a trance for a good fifteen minutes, searching for her bag.

It was empty, the Shrine to Zeus the sole decoration. In the back, two cots were tucked off to the sides. The one with clothes tossed all over it, she assumed, was Thalia’s. Guessing this, she went directly to the other one. Reyna noticed both of them were strategically placed, probably by Thalia, so the shrine to Jupiter was blocked from view. She wondered briefly why Thalia had chosen to stay here instead of with her fellow hunters in the Artemis cabin. 

Reyna sat on the empty cot and rummaged through her bag for her multicolored sharpies and a small light she had packed for this purpose. As she did that, Thalia walked into the cabin.

“Sorry about the creepy shrine,” she said as she sat on her own cot. “I tried to move your cot as far out of view as I could, but I’m not sure I got it right.”

“It’s fine,” replied Reyna, her sharpies in hand. “Though I do wonder why you stay in here instead of with the hunters. That shrine  _ is  _ pretty creepy.”

Thalia shrugged. “It’s just- I don’t know. I don’t want to make them feel awkward. I write to my soulmate every night, and a lot of them don’t have soulmates, or have soulmates that died a long time ago. It’s weird.”

Reyna nodded. “ I do the same thing. I can’t just  _ not  _ write to my soulmate. She’s amazing. And if you’re the same way, yeah. I get it.” She didn’t understand why her voice sounded so uncertain. This was the thing she felt the most sure about in the world.

“My soulmate is the best person I’ve ever talked to. She lives in a different time zone, so I usually end up waiting up until two or three to talk to her. I’m practically nocturnal anyway. The Hunters tend to move at night. It’s the best part of my day,” said Thalia.

“I feel the same way. I guess our soulmates are our soulmates for a reason. Whatever force picked mine out did a good job. She’s just… incredible,” Reyna replied.

“I don’t even have the words to describe mine,” said Thalia. “I think I’m going to write to her now. She probably isn’t going to reply for a while, but I may as well.” 

“Yeah, me too.” Reyna turned away from Thalia and started searching for a space to write. Her skin was covered with words, some almost completely faded and others fresh.

Eventually, she found space. Her brain, befuddled as it was, couldn’t find any words to say something to her soulmate. 

_ “We’re running out of writing space. I’d better find you soon,”  _ Reyna wrote.

_ “Not if I find you first.”  _ The words appeared on her skin in her soulmate’s trademark terrible handwriting.

_ “Not happening. I won’t be complaining, but I’ll find you first.” _

_ “I’ve been trained for this. But sure, be overconfident as always,”  _ wrote Reyna’s soulmate. _ “Either way, why are you writing to me so early?”  _

Reyna paused for a second, her tired brain painfully slow. It was a good few minutes before she remembered what a time zone was.

_ “I’ve been travelling and I’m in a completely different time zone. I had been waiting up, but I’m too tired to do that. My entire day was just crazy.” _

_ “Mine too. What happened in yours?” _

_ “The first half of the day I was driving across the country, then I had to rebuild a house that had burnt down. You?”  _ Reyna wrote. Her handwriting was small and cramped, leaving room for her soulmate.

_ “I can’t say I drove across the country like you did, but I rebuilt a house and almost shot a girl,”  _ She said, her words even smaller than Reyna’s.

_ “It’s way harder than it looks. And I’ve learned not to ask about how you almost shot a girl.” _

_ “Agreed. It would be weird if it was the same house, but I know it can’t be.”  _

_ “How come?”  _ Reyna asked.

_ “Kind of inaccessible area. Not a lot of people can physically get to the surrounding area.” _

_ “I know what you mean. I live in an area like that and just drove a long time to another one.” _

_ “How long did you drive for?”  _ wrote Reyna’s soulmate.

_ “Four-ish days? I don’t know. And everyone was arguing in the backseat the entire time. It drove me nuts, but considering I can’t quite see the void physically manifesting, I should be okay.” _

Reyna heard Thalia laugh quietly on the other side of the room, almost on cue. Most likely something her soulmate had said.

_ “Just promise me that by the time you can see the void physically manifesting, you’ll go to sleep.”  _ Reyna’s soulmate knew how unlikely it was that she would even attempt to go to sleep at a reasonable hour most nights.

_ “I think I may go to sleep right now. But you too,”  _ Reyna said. She had a vague idea of the time zone her soulmate was in- definitely in the United States or Canada, but at least two hours, if not three, from New Rome. That meant she was in the same time zone as Reyna was currently, if not an hour before.

_ “Fine.” _

Reyna took her sharpies and put them away, turning off her light. At the same time, Thalia turned hers off as well. 

It was strange that Thalia had stopped writing at the same time, especially considering that she had just mentioned how she usually waited until two or three, and it wasn’t even one as of currently. Adding that to the fact that Thalia had laughed right when Reyna was being sarcastic, and she was suspicious.

Did Thalia wear chainmaille jewelry? Reyna had been too tired to remember to check earlier, and she certainly wouldn’t be wearing any now. She’d look tomorrow, she decided as she fell asleep.


	3. Chapter Three

Reyna woke up the next morning to Thalia’s face taking up most of her field of vision. She startled, falling backwards off the cot. 

“Thalia-” she groaned as she sat up, wriggling out of the blanket.

Thalia bit her lip, holding back a laugh. “Sorry I scared you,” she said, holding out a hand to pull Reyna up.

Reyna rolled her eyes as she stood. “Well, I’m awake now.” 

“Yeah, it’s seven. I figured you’d want to get up sooner or later.”   
  
“Well, you were right.”

An awkward silence fell over the two. Reyna was uncomfortable, and she clearly wasn’t the only one. Thalia’s hands were fiddling with everything in sight, her eyes flitting across the room, looking for an exit. Reyna had never seen eyes quite like hers before. The color was deep and intense; the brightest, most impossible blue. Even Jason’s didn’t quite come close.

Reyna felt herself blush as she realised she was staring. “Is there a bathroom in this cabin? I need to get dressed.”

Thalia pointed to a door in the back corner of the cabin. “Back there. We’re making an effort to make the cabins for Zeus, Hera, and Artemis livable, even though Hera and Artemis don’t have kids. That was the first step.”

“Sounds like something Jason would threaten people into doing. He absolutely _ insisted _ that the fifth cohort’s barracks be rebuilt to decent standards. A lot of them had leaks and they were always at the bottom of the repairs list.”

“It actually was Jason’s idea.” Thalia smiled slightly as she said this. “Apparently Poseidon had told Percy that he would be sending some new siblings his way in a few years, and if  _ Poseidon  _ said that- you know how Zeus is; I probably have a dozen new siblings by now.”

“Yeah, probably,” said Reyna. “I’m going to go get ready; I’ll be out in a few minutes."

Thalia may have said “okay,” or nodded, or something, but, if she did, it didn’t register with Reyna. She took her bag from the floor and walked quickly into the bathroom, hopefully not quickly enough to alert Thalia that she was freaking out inside. 

Reyna shut the door behind her and fought a scream. Her mind was going everywhere, just like it had the day her soulmate had first written to her. Everything else could be a coincidence, but not this.

Thalia was wearing bracelets of handmade chainmaille. 

* * *

A few days later, Reyna was in the Hera cabin, getting ready to leave for New Rome. Her belongings were packed up, her cot tucked away, everything in order, just as it should be. But there was one thing she couldn’t let go.

By this point, she had enough evidence that she was fairly certain her soulmate was indeed Thalia Grace. She’d spent her visit noticing every little detail- things that Reyna’s soulmate had told her, such as her fear of heights, that she can rap Guns and Ships from Hamilton perfectly (when Thalia did that in front of the Hunters, unaware that Reyna was watching, was interesting, to say the least), that she dyes her hair different colors every once in a while to mix things up. There was also the fact that Thalia’s handwriting, large and loopy chicken scratch, matched the writing on Reyna’s skin almost perfectly.

Of course, none of this had anything to do with the fact that Reyna  _ may  _ have developed a  _ tiny  _ crush on the lieutenant of Artemis in those few days.

As little (or as much) as she wanted to admit it, this was another argument that led to Thalia being her soulmate. Reyna had never felt romantically for anyone since her soulmate had first written to her. Her soulmate was just too perfect. Jason had once told her about people sometimes liking their soulmates before they even knew they were soulmates.

“It was just a few days,” she had scolded herself once she figured it out. Less than a week to spend with the Greeks- on business, no less, and she managed to mess things up.

If only Jason were here! He knew everything about soulmates and love and  _ people _ . Reyna had never been good with people, and soulmates were no exception. What did you say? She couldn’t just walk up to Thalia and say “Oh, hi. Yeah, I’m guessing you’re my soulmate. Goodbye!”

Reyna knew Jason like the back of her hand, and he knew her the same way. And if Reyna knew one thing about him, it was that he had a way with words. If he were here now, Reyna would have already told him everything. They would be sitting in a deserted corner, thinking up good ways for Reyna to ask Thalia out. 

She missed Jason more than she let on- a lot more. She had lost everyone in her life that she cared about, and now Jason was no exception. She had hoped once that she would have a chance to be happy, but she’d never considered that he wouldn’t be a part of it. 

Now, all she wanted was more time- more time Jason, her best friend of years and years. And now, she realized as she stood by the gate to camp, she wanted more time with Thalia. The Hunters didn’t visit Camp Jupiter too often, and they were never at Camp Half Blood at the same time as Reyna. She wouldn’t see Thalia for a long time, maybe even years. 

“This  _ really  _ isn’t optimal,” she muttered to herself as she finished packing her bag, slinging it over her shoulder. Her eyes swept across the cabin one last time, looking for anything she may have left behind. Nothing. 

Reyna left the cabin, heading immediately to the truck. She didn’t seek out Thalia, no matter how much she wanted to. She and her soulmate had a discussion last night that took Reyna to nearly two in the morning. 

She thought of Thalia the whole time. Even if she wasn’t 100% sure Thalia was her soulmate, Reyna could read the words so strongly in her voice. Everything was something Thalia would have said. 

When she arrived at the gate to camp, Frank, Hazel, Dakota, and Lavinia were already there. To her surprise, so was Thalia, who stood to the side, deep in conversation with Hazel.

Thalia turned from Hazel to acknowledge Reyna as she approached them, shifting around awkwardly on her feet. 

Reyna smiled at her. “It was good to see you. Will the Hunters be coming to New Rome anytime soon?”

The words felt wrong in her mouth, like it wasn’t really her saying them, but an imposter. Reyna felt fake- she was hiding her suspicions about soulmates from Thalia, the one person who had every right to know. 

Thalia hesitated. “I don’t really know. Artemis usually likes to avoid the camps, given the amount of boys and men, in New Rome particularly. There’s a number of them that like to harass us for our choice to swear them off, and we don’t like to deal with it.”

“Fair. It’s a shame, though. I was hoping to see you sometime soon,” said Reyna.

“I mean, we  _ will  _ be in the area in about two-ish weeks, because we’re leaving today as well, but we don’t plan on visiting. Some of them are scared of me, because I may have punched a few of them, but not everybody else.”

“Well, do you want to come with us, if you were going that way anyway? We’ll arrive a couple of days before the Hunters, and you can spend a few days there before going back.”

“That sounds great. I’ll have to check with Artemis, though. She’s usually against her hunters traveling with boys in general, but I trust Dakota and Frank. I could also beat them both in hand to hand combat easily,” said Thalia. She glanced over at Frank as she said the last part.

Frank gave her a thumbs up and nodded. Understood.

Thalia dashed off. A few minutes later, she returned, a backpack on her back and a giant smile on her face that admittedly made Reyna’s traitorous insides do several flips. 

“She doesn’t really like the idea, but she trusts my judgement,” Thalia said. “Although she did provide me several new weapons, just in case.” She shot a warning glare at Dakota and Frank, who both backed up and put their hands in the air.

Hazel laughed. “Okay, I think you’ve threatened them sufficiently. Let’s get going. This trip is going to be long enough as it is.”

“How long is that?” Thalia asked. 

“Four days,” said Reyna. “The actual drive is just under two days, but we need to account for gas, sleep, traffic, and the fact that it’s noon already.” 

“Beats spending two weeks running through the woods in the rain.” Thalia shrugged. 

Reyna glanced up at the sky instinctively. Of course it wouldn’t rain here; it would be raining on the route the Hunters were taking. Nonetheless, she didn’t know where her route and Artemis’s overlapped. 

“Well, we’ll be in the truck the entire time.”   


“I’ll take it,” she said. “When are we leaving?”

“If nobody has any objections, right now,” Reyna said.

When nobody did, everyone climbed into the truck. Reyna, as the only one with a driver’s license, took the wheel. Thalia somehow ended up in the front seat, Dakota and Lavinia in the bucket seats, and Frank and Hazel crammed in the backseat with everyone’s bags. Before Reyna knew what she was getting herself into, the road trip had started.


	4. Chapter Four

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have started chapter five, but your guess is as good as mine as to when it is going to be up.

The next few hours were simultaneously monotonous and quite interesting. Reyna supposed one always led to the other- monotony will lead to people doing anything to entertain themselves, and anything that can be considered “entertaining” is bound to end in casualties and people swearing not to entertain themselves again.

It was about a half hour into the trip when Lavinia and Dakota tried to start the License Plate Game. After a ten minute argument about whether the California plate on Reyna’s truck counted towards winning, however, the game was canceled. 

Similarly, there was the Chicken Nugget Incident, which made the list of things Reyna would never talk about again. Bellona forbid she buy extra chicken nuggets in the hopes of only stopping once. She would have to have a serious talk with Nico about what he was teaching his sister, though. She couldn’t imagine Hazel picking  _ that  _ up on her own. 

However, by the time night fell, they had made it safely to a small motel near the Illinois-Indiana border. The place was slightly dingy looking, with a few cars in the parking lot and several lights broken on the sign. It wouldn’t have been Reyna’s first choice, or even made the top ten, but it was the only thing around for miles. It was near midnight by this point, and she didn’t think she could drive any further. 

Not much of what happened next registered in Reyna’s brain. She was fairly certain Frank went inside to purchase rooms, and she was also pretty sure she had to wake Thalia, who had fallen asleep not long beforehand. 

“How many rooms did we get?” She had asked Frank. 

“Three.”

Reyna turned to face the others, who by that point were all out of the truck, leaning against the hood. A quick headcount said that all five of her companions were there. 

“We’re going to split up into groups of two,” she said. “Frank can go with Dakota, Hazel with Lavinia, and Thalia with me. No weapons are to be drawn. Goodnight.”

Reyna was too tired to give a better lecture, which was probably best for everyone involved. She let Frank read the room numbers, and watched as the two other groups entered their rooms, which she could see were fairly small, but sufficient for two people, with two beds and a bathroom. 

As both doors closed, she turned to Thalia, who was already making her way to the third room. As she opened the door and looked inside, Reyna could hear her groan. 

“Are you kidding me?” Thalia asked nobody in particular. 

Reyna jogged up behind her. “What is it?”

She looked into the room. “Oh.” 

It was half the size of the other two, with only one bed. 

“Ugh.” Reyna put her head against the wall. “I’m too tired for this nonsense.”

“Me too,” Thalia said. “You can have the bed. I’ll take the floor.”

Reyna shot a look that she doubted Thalia noticed. “Absolutely not. You can have the bed, and I’ll sleep on the floor.”

“I’m not letting you sleep on the floor,” Thalia countered.

“Well, I’m not letting you either.”

“Rock-paper-scissors. Winner gets the bed,” Thalia said decisively. 

“Fine,” Reyna said.

“And you can’t choose gun,” Thalia said. 

“Wasn’t planning on it,” said Reyna, who planned on doing everything in her power to lose.

Five seconds later, both girls had their hands out in a “rock” formation.

Five more seconds. Scissors. Reyna was getting agitated by this point, and clearly Thalia was as well.

They tried again. Another scissors. Once again. Paper.

Thalia threw up her hands in frustration. “We’re almost adults. Can we just settle this maturely? We both take the bed. It won’t kill us for a few hours, and we’ll probably fall asleep in a couple of minutes anyway.”

Reyna sighed, too tired, by that point, to argue. “Okay, fine.”

By the time Reyna turned to look, Thalia had flopped onto the closest side of the bed. Her eyes were closed, and Reyna was fairly certain she was already asleep. Reyna was about ready to follow suit by now, climbing onto the far side of the bed and making sure to take up as little space as possible. 

She prepared to wait in exhausted anguish for sleep. However, in a minute’s time, she was out like a light. 

The nightmares came for Reyna that night, just as they always did. To think she used to be able to control them seemed ridiculous by now. The ability had slowly started to slip away after the war, as it got harder and harder to imagine that she used to sleep so easily. 

She was back in Puerto Rico, but whether it was during the Battle of Old San Juan or her childhood there, Reyna couldn’t tell. She’d had nightmares about both. Either way, there she was- standing in the street, staring at the house she used to live in. The house she could never escape, no matter how far she ran.

That was when the ghosts arrived. They swarmed around her, trapping her in a vortex of whispers- the whispers that could drive a person insane. The whispers from which Reyna had spent years hiding and running, but could never escape. 

There was nothing she could do now but try to block them out, just as she’d done her whole life. Even after she knew they were gone, Reyna could always see them out of the corner of her eye, vanishing the second she looked at them. 

She could barely even tolerate the Lares at Camp Jupiter, and those only because she knew that, if she wanted to survive, she had to be stronger and braver than she really was. No matter what happened, she would always get up and put on her blank, unreadable face, the face that sent whispers through the camp.

_ “Inhuman.” _

_ “Unnatural.” _

_ “Just freaky.” _

Before she knew it, the whispers of the campers had seeped into the communal whisper of the ghosts, getting louder and more threatening and eventually blending into one single sentence.

_ “You will never escape your crime.”  _

Reyna woke up in a tangle of sheets, her pillow somehow at her feet. An instant of panic passed as she forgot where she was. A glance at Thalia, however, told her. She decided this wasn’t much better. 

Still shaking from the nightmare, she untangled herself and crawled out of the bed, leaving her sitting on the covers. According to the clock, it wasn’t quite 3 AM. She still had to sleep for a few more hours. 

Before she could even step off the bed, Thalia turned over. 

“What are you doing?” she asked, sleep heavily dripping into her voice. 

“Nothing,” replied Reyna. “Go back to sleep.” Her voice trembled slightly. She only hoped Thalia couldn’t tell. 

“Clearly not,” Thalia said. “Lay back down. You’re going to need the sleep.”

“I’m okay,” said Reyna. “Really, I’ll be fine.”

Thalia sat up and looked directly at Reyna. “Alright, but you should go back to sleep.”

“Not right now,” Reyna said, searching her mind for an excuse. “I was going to go to the bathroom.”

She got off the bed before Thalia could call her bluff and shut herself in the bathroom. Hopefully, she could wait a few minutes for Thalia to go back to sleep and spend the rest of the night on the floor. 

Ten minutes and several paper cups of water later, Reyna went back into the room, admittedly still a bit shaken up. She opened the door, quietly grabbing a pillow from the bed and laying it on the floor. She took the extra blanket from the foot of the bed and went to wrap herself up the best she could. It was going to be a long night, but she would get through. Just like she always did.

However, she had no such luck. 

“What are you doing?” Thalia asked. She didn’t get up or even move; Reyna would have guessed she was asleep had she not spoken.

“Going back to sleep.”

“That’s what the bed’s for, you know.”

“I know,” Reyna said. “But I’m fine.”

“You’ll get a better sleep on the bed,” replied Thalia.

Better sleep was appealing to Reyna, especially at this hour, but she stood her ground. “Really, I’m fine. I don’t want to bother you.”

Thalia sighed, sitting up to look directly at Reyna. “Let’s put it this way. I trust you, but driving across the country on less than five hours of sleep is pushing it. And it isn’t like anyone else can drive, so you’re the only option.”

Reyna gave Thalia her best stink eye, though it was probably fruitless in a room this dark, knowing she was right. “Fine. But if I kick you in the face or something, it isn’t my fault.” 

“How would you-” Thalia trailed off, probably deciding she didn’t want to know. “Alright. Just try to go to sleep.”

Reyna had already stumbled onto the bed, her face buried in her pillow. She heard Thalia laugh lightly and tuck the blanket around her, and that was all. She was asleep in seconds. 

Like clockwork, Reyna woke up at seven every day. That certainly didn’t change this morning, when she jolted awake to find Thalia’s face only inches from hers. From what Reyna could tell, she was still asleep, but wouldn’t be for long unless Reyna managed to move. 

That, she discovered, was not easy. Not only were the two of them wrapped tightly in the blankets, but around each other as well. Thalia had an arm under Reyna, and Reyna had both of hers wrapped around Thalia. As for their legs, had there not been a drastic difference in skin tone, Reyna wouldn’t have been able to tell where one ended and the other began. 

She slowly began to untangle herself, and actually wasn’t doing too bad until it came to getting her arm out from under Thalia. She swore she was being careful, but Thalia was waking up whether she liked it or not. With valiant effort, she yanked herself to the side, effectively getting her arm out from under Thalia.

However, she forgot one thing- her proximity to the edge of the bed. She, Thalia, and most of the sheets and blankets rolled right off the side and onto the floor, with Thalia directly on top of Reyna, both of them tangled hopelessly in a sheet. 

Thalia made a strange screeching noise, sitting bolt upright and immediately falling backwards. “What was that for, Rey? I was going to get up eventually.”

Reyna groaned, ignoring Thalia’s question. “Get off of me.”

It took another minute or so in their groggy early-morning state, but the two managed to escape the blanket. 

After getting dressed, picking up all of her stuff, taking the blanket burrito off the floor, and losing her praetorian cape twice, Reyna was finally awake. Thalia seemed to be functioning along the same lines, Reyna thought as she saw her try to brush her hair with an arrow. 

Finally, however, the two of them looked moderately presentable. Nobody got stabbed, though they both came close a few times. Reyna would even go so far as to say that Thalia looked good, but a number of Freudian slips wouldn’t let her go any further than that. 

“Did we miss anything?” Reyna asked, surveying the room as she picked up her bag. 

“I don’t think so,” Thalia said. “Let’s see how the others are doing.”

“Probably poorly,” Reyna remarked.

“Yeah, probably.”

They were right, as it turned out. Lavinia and Hazel were in an intense argument over Lavinia’s right to chew gum, and neither Frank nor Dakota was awake yet. 

Half an hour later, however, everyone was yet again in the truck, with Reyna, who was by now deeply regretting her life choices, at the wheel. 

As she looked down the road in front of her, she knew it would be another very long day. 


	5. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter took me so long. 
> 
> Legally, cometlite is obligated to forgive me now for the spam, cabbage, and rickroll. 
> 
> I hope everyone who actually reads this likes the chapter. If you have an idea for a fic, please send me a request! My tumblr is @official-book-wizard.

Try as she might, Reyna couldn’t ignore the bracelet glinting on Thalia’s wrist in the seat next to her. It was a fairly simple chainmaille bracelet, but looped into the rings were tiny beads that must have taken Thalia hours to add. With her, it was all in the details. Though Reyna wouldn’t call her a perfectionist, she could see that Thalia did things carefully and precisely. 

Of course, she had also watched Thalia mess up her hair meticulously for at least five minutes earlier, but that wasn’t any of her business. 

Nor was it her business how she could see a tiny scratch on Thalia’s arm, exactly where Reyna had gotten an identical one after being knocked off the bed. 

Nothing about Thalia was any of her business, but  _ of course _ her brain wouldn’t listen to that logic. 

“Are we about ready to go?” She asked the backseat in general. 

Murmured “yes”s came from the peanut gallery, though Reyna didn’t care either way. She’d drive away from here, escape from her own brain, no matter what they said. 

* * *

Thankfully, they managed to go a few hours without stopping, and when they did Reyna made sure it was nowhere that sold chicken nuggets. This wasn’t going to go wrong, not on her watch. 

Reyna pulled the truck into a rest stop just around lunchtime. It looked sort of sketchy, but she was only willing to admit that to herself. It was the only one she could find without a McDonalds, and there weren’t a lot of options this far into the middle of nowhere. 

They all dispersed, with Thalia staying behind to guard the car. She and Reyna had made an agreement- Reyna would finish quickly getting her own food then come relieve Thalia of duty, and Thalia would go in to get hers. 

Surprisingly, she didn’t encounter any monsters inside the rest stop. Given Reyna’s past luck and that they had two children of the Big Three with them (come to think of it, this trip was a horrible idea), it was bound to happen. She would just take the luck and run, Reyna decided. 

It was when she was finishing up, buying jelly beans with her lunch in hand, that she knew her luck had run out. 

It felt like a punch to the chest, coming out of nowhere and knocking the wind out of her. She must have shown the alarm on her face, because the cashier eyed her strangely. She pretended to pay no attention, but her heart was racing. Thalia was being attacked by something.

As calmly as she could, she walked out of the building. By the time she could see the parking lot, her knuckles were raw and bleeding. As she started running towards the car, she could feel blood trickling down her face from what was certainly a black eye. 

The truck was surrounded by people, by the looks of it in the middle of an all-out brawl. However, as she got closer, she noticed that they weren’t fighting each other- everybody was ganging up on Thalia, who was standing in the center, resisting as hard as she could against what looked like four or five mortal punk teenagers. 

Before she could think of what she was doing, Reyna jumped into the fray. She and Thalia were fighting back to back within a minute. They were good, and Reyna could only imagine what the gang had done to invoke Thalia’s wrath. 

The brawl lasted what seemed like hours, though it was probably less than five minutes. By the time the gang ran off into the woods, Reyna was bruised and beaten all over. Thalia had a full body of identical injuries, which of course Reyna knew, though she was still surprised to see it. 

“We just did that,” Thalia said, standing dumbfounded in place. She laughed. “I can’t believe we just did that.”

Reyna didn’t remember starting to hug Thalia, but she found herself tightly wrapped around her anyway. 

“Don’t  _ ever  _ do that again,” she said. “What was the point in fighting them anyway?”

“Long story short, but I keep running into them with the hunters. Every single time, one of them tries something- usually robbery. I’m tired of it and need them to get out of this area before Artemis comes through.”

“So you started this?” Reyna asked, pulling away from Thalia to look her in the eyes. 

“Actually, no.” Thalia stepped a few feet back. “They somehow recognized me. I’m more punk than them anyway.”

Reyna tried to keep a straight face at this- she really did- but ultimately failed. “I’m sorry,” she said. “But you’re about as punk as a fluffy bunny.”   


Thalia made a face of mock offense. “Excuse  _ me _ , you have no right to say that!”

“I have every right!” Reyna cut herself off, realizing she was about to say something she should not have known. 

Thalia raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms. “Go on.”

Reyna fumbled in her brain for an excuse. Thankfully, she was saved by the arrival of their companions. She laughed somewhat convincingly, pointing in their direction. “No, it’s just that you should probably hurry up and get yourself some food. Everyone else is coming back.”

Thalia swore under her breath, making a mad dash for the rest stop. Almost instantly after she left, Hazel and Lavinia were back, and Dakota and Frank soon after. 

“Did I see a fight?” Lavinia asked with a certain degree of eagerness that should not have been present in her voice. 

“It wasn’t my fight,” Reyna defended herself. “It was Thalia’s.”

“You have a lot of injuries for someone who wasn’t involved,” Hazel commented. “Seriously, that must hurt.”

Reyna shrugged. “I walked outside and Thalia was beating up a gang and subsequently getting beaten up herself. What do you expect me to do?”

“I guess exactly that,” Hazel conceded. “We should get into the truck and wait for Thalia. She’ll be back soon.”

Thalia was, in fact, back soon. She rushed out only a minute after going in, looking like she ran the entire way. Reyna barely had time to unlock the truck before Thalia dove into the passenger seat. 

“You get everything?” Reyna asked incredulously, trying not to laugh. 

“Yeah, but knowing me I’ll remember in a few hours' time that I’ve forgotten something important.” Thalia shrugged. “At least I didn’t forget my giant, terror-inducing shield this time. That was  _ not  _ fun.”

Reyna rolled her eyes, though internally she really did want to know the story behind that. There was no doubt Thalia would tell it- they would probably be driving for hours more, and the huntress never seemed to have a shortage of things to say. 

* * *

She was, unfortunately, right. Thalia spent at least twenty minutes explaining every detail of how she probably traumatized a poor toddler for life after misplacing her shield. 

While Reyna had initially wanted to hear, Thalia could talk for a long time. It wasn’t like it was annoying- in fact, with everyone else falling asleep in the backseat, having Thalia talk in the background was taking the edge off the insanity. But by the time she pulled into the parking lot of yet another sketchy motel, she was too tired for pretty much any interaction. 

It wasn’t nearly as late as it had been when they had pulled into the motel last night, but Reyna was exhausted nonetheless. Exhausted and bleeding from numerous places. Thalia seemed not to be faring much better, she noted. Of course, that was to be expected. 

She wasn’t sure if Thalia had noticed that their injuries were completely identical. Reyna certainly had- to her it was completely, utterly obvious. That didn’t make confronting Thalia about it any easier. 

She was asleep right now. Even covered in blood and wearing spiked bracelets that Reyna was sure were concealed weapons, she looked peaceful and fairly innocent, like she hadn’t committed a single murder in her life. 

“We’re here,” Reyna announced, hopefully loud enough to wake whoever was asleep in the back. 

Lavinia started to move around in the backseat, carefully climbing over Frank and Dakota, who had somehow managed to fall asleep in her path. 

Reyna stepped out of the truck, opening the door to let her out. “It’ll probably take time to get rooms anyway. We can wake them up when we get back.”

Lavinia nodded and locked the truck. The keys were now in her hands, though Reyna couldn’t fathom how. 

The fluorescent lights inside the reception area were a slap in the face to Reyna, who had been in the dark truck since the sun had set hours ago. She squinted slightly upon entering the building. It was empty, save for an old woman in a large hat at the front desk. She smiled at the two as they walked in, though her eyes didn’t move to look at them. 

It was creeping Reyna out, and, by the look on Lavinia’s face, she wasn’t the only one. 

“Would you like a room?” Asked the old woman. Her eyes were still unfocused, staring at a random point in space. 

Lavinia was the one who spoke up. “Um, yes. There are six of us.”

“Perfect,” she said, a malicious tone in her voice. This time, as she spoke, Reyna noticed something- in her mouth was hair. A lot of hair, and nothing else. No teeth, just a solid wall of hair. 

She glanced at the woman’s hairline, noticing what she hadn’t before- her hair stopped suddenly at the top of her forehead, as if her face had been placed over a head made entirely of hair. 

Recognition hit her like a lightning bolt. 

“One moment,” Reyna said. She grabbed Lavinia’s arm, dragging her to the far back of the lobby, whispering something about needing to speak to her. 

“We need to get out of here. She isn’t human,” Reyna whispered as quietly as she could while still being loud enough as to be audible to Lavinia. “Do you have your crossbow?”

“Yeah-” Lavinia said. “Why? What is she?”

“An abarimon, I think,” Reyna said. “Cannibals with feet that face the wrong way.”

“Well, that can’t be that bad. If your feet face backwards, how fast can you be?”

“These guys?” Reyna asked. “Very fast. She has a mask on the back of her head, so her actual face is on the other side. That’s why she was staring into space. I’ve seen some of them use masks that can move their lips when they talk, and I’m pretty sure she’s one of them.”

“Well, how do we get rid of her? I don’t suppose it’s going to be easy.”

“Well, she isn’t invulnerable, and she can’t see, but it would probably be easier to-”

The abarimon called out to them cheerily from the other side of the room. “We only have two rooms available, but they have room for three in each. Is that okay?”

Reyna glanced back to Lavinia quickly. “I don’t know what she’s going to do, if anything. Just be careful.”

Lavinia nodded, then walked back up to the abarimon, albeit less confidently than she had been before. “Yeah, that would be fine,” she said. 

“Excellent. Follow me and I’ll show you to your rooms,” she said, stepping out from behind the desk. The back of her head, which was technically the front, was covered by her large hat, so Reyna couldn’t see her real face. It was obvious, however, that the face she had been using was fake. 

She didn’t ask for any payment, which confirmed Reyna’s suspicions that she had a sinister motive. However, this wasn’t a good place or time to fight her. Not remotely. Reyna looked at the abarimon’s feet. They were much larger than any human’s would logically be. She was walking slowly, which made sense- she was moving backwards with her face covered. 

However, she clearly knew the motel well, as she stopped right in front of a vacant room and opened the door. Reyna couldn’t see into the room too well, as there was a wall in front of the door. On one side was a bathroom, but the room was clearly behind the wall. You would have to step in to see it. 

Everything about this was screaming “TRAP,” but fighting this old woman on her own territory would give her a major advantage. Reyna could only hope that she would be able to wake her friends and get backup, fast. 

“Is this okay?” The old woman asked. 

Reyna was  _ not  _ going into that room. Neither her spear nor Lavinia’s crossbow and bolts would be effective in such a small space. She could see the trap clearly. 

Unfortunately, Lavinia could not. She stepped inside the doorway, heading over to look around the corner. 

Reyna’s fatal mistake was stepping forward to pull her out of the room. When she did, the door closed behind her, locking. 

The abarimon ripped off her hat and smirked. 

They were  _ so  _ dead. 


End file.
